Exeter will take an unbeaten record spanning seven games across three competitions into Sunday's west country derby against Gloucester at Kingsholm. If the Chiefs can repeat last season's dramatic one-point victory at the ground, they would be looking at a tilt at the Premiership play-offs later in the season.

Exeter are sixth in the table, one place below Gloucester, but such is the Premiership's fiercely competitive nature this season that they are only five points behind the leaders, Harlequins.

"We've faced some big challenges already this season and thrived on them, but going to Kingsholm at Christmas time in a local derby is what it's all about, really," the Exeter coach, Rob Baxter, said.

"There won't be a bigger challenge than going to Kingsholm. They are a team that is bang on form. You look at their results this season and, if they don't win games, they lose by very little. That is the mark of a really solid team.

"They may not be quite as exciting as they have been in other seasons when the tries were flying in but, if you look at their results and where they are heading as a team, then they are a side that are tough to play."

Exeter are unbeaten for almost two months, having reeled off three Premiership wins, two Heineken Cup victories and a couple of LV Cup successes, and Baxter added: "The Premiership is really the bread and butter of what you are all about. Getting into the Heineken Cup comes on the back of your Premiership form and we have based everything we have done here on how well we play in the Premiership."

Gloucester's rugby director, Nigel Davies, accepts that form points to Sunday's encounter being decided by fine margins. "There is not much between us and the top, and there is not much between us and Exeter," Davies said. "It really makes the game very interesting and it will tell us a lot, at the midway point of the Premiership season, about exactly where we are.

"We are coming up against a very good, organised and committed team. Our work rate has to be right up there and the quality of what we do has to be very accurate in order for us to get a result."

Elsewhere in the Premiership, Leicester's director of rugby, Richard Cockerill, has indicated to the Leicester Mercury that the club are interested in the Perpignan half-back David Mélé, with the 27-year-old able to cover scrum-half and fly-half.